History of the Peninsular War, Volume 4 (of 6)Southey, Robert
History
History of the Peninsular War, Volume 4 (of 6)
Southey, Robert
Peninsular War, 1807-1814
Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether ministers had employed transports to bring
away our cavalry from Portugal? in this service, he said, our money
would be best employed. He had never heard of any achievement performed
by the Portugueze, except, indeed, that 2000 of them, with the Bishop
of Porto at their head, had entered Porto, and taken twenty-four
Frenchmen ♦LORD MILTON;♦ prisoners. Lord Milton repeated the erroneous
proposition of the Marquis of Lansdowne, that it was highly improper to
act as principals in a foreign country, instead of as auxiliaries. “No
reasonable man,” he affirmed, “could vote a million of the public money
for such a purpose, when the French were under the walls of Cadiz.
It had often been the practice to subsidize foreign troops, but he
believed it had never before entered the head of any English statesman
to grant subsidies to the Portugueze, ... to those, in fact, among whom
the materials for ♦MR. BANKES;♦ an army could not be found.” Mr. Bankes
talked of the money: “We had it not to spare, and if we had, even then
we ought not to spare it. Too much had already been furnished to the
Spaniards. Where were we to find more? specie we had not, and paper
would not answer. The enemy were now perhaps in possession of Cadiz,
which had escaped immediate capture only through an accident. The
Cortes had not even a town in Spain to meet in. It was quite romantic
to expect that a British army, of 20,000 or 25,000 men, even with
whatever co-operation Portugal could give, would be able to maintain
the war there as a principal against France. He must oppose the motion,
and recommend that the resources of the country should be husbanded for
our defence.”
♦MR. JACOB;♦
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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